Who's smoking meat this weekend?

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Picked up a pork shoulder at Costco on Monday, trimmed and dry-brined on Wednesday, then sous vided from Thursday to Friday (26 hours). My next step is usually to smoke with a chunk of Japanese cherry blossom wood (sakura) at 110C/230F for 4-5 hours, but it was way too windy to smoke with heat (charcoal/gas), so I used a brick of compressed hickory sawdust. You just light it and it smokes for about 90 minutes, with no extra heat necessary.

After that, I put it in our tiny Japanese oven for 3 hours at 110C/230F, and it developed this nice bark without any additional moisture loss. The kitchen still smells amazing a couple hours later, but if I'm telling the truth, I would've liked a little more smoke on the meat. The sawdust bricks are convenient, but I don't get nearly the amount of smoke from them as I do from chunks of solid wood.

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Getting an early jump on the weekend. 9 lb bone-in butt prepped yesterday with Aaron Franklin's injection recipe, then this morning rubbed it with Memphis style and "Sweet Chicago Heat" rubs that my wife makes. Also smoking a block of cream cheese coated with everything bagel seasoning and later I'll be tossing some heads of garlic in there.

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the cream cheese was a big hit, though the apple/cherry pellet mix I used was a bit light on the smoke. Next time I'll get more aggressive with the seasonings and use hickory.
 
Rarely post anything these days, but I generally keep up with this thread.

My old electric cabinet smoker rusted out to the point of no return, so I decided to build a new smoker. My UDS build:
 

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the cream cheese was a big hit, though the apple/cherry pellet mix I used was a bit light on the smoke. Next time I'll get more aggressive with the seasonings and use hickory.

I love smoked cream cheese. I have only used BBQ rub though. May have to try the Everything Bagel Seasoning. And the garlic too!!
 
Dang @Jayjay1976 that looks delicious!

What's the process (i.e. set temp, etc)? Have you made pizza on an outdoor grill/oven before, and how did this compare?

I've done pizza in the Big Joe before, but it always seems hit or miss when I do it. I can never seem to get the temps/etc right. Every once in a while I'll absolutely nail it, but more often it's never quite up to my standards. If you can nail that on your first attempt, it either means you're really talented or it's an "easy button" for pizza.
 
Dang @Jayjay1976 that looks delicious!

What's the process (i.e. set temp, etc)? Have you made pizza on an outdoor grill/oven before, and how did this compare?

I've done pizza in the Big Joe before, but it always seems hit or miss when I do it. I can never seem to get the temps/etc right. Every once in a while I'll absolutely nail it, but more often it's never quite up to my standards. If you can nail that on your first attempt, it either means you're really talented or it's an "easy button" for pizza.
This is way OT and belongs in the pizza making thread but..

Grill was set to 450f for the first burnt pie, we weren't prepared for it to cook so fast and were scrambling to assemble the second. I turned it down to 400 for the second one so it had a bit more time to cook the sauce and toppings before the crust got too dark. This is my very first experience cooking pizza like this, we were so happy with the results using store bought dough that I might not even bother making my own haha. Other than that it was mostly luck!!
 
First time smoking a tri tip. Happy with the outcome. Smoked at 210F until 135F Internal temp. Then seared in a cast iron pan for about 6 min per side to about 142F IT. Sorry for the poor plating pics, it was time to eat! Lol!
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This is a good one...

https://thewoksoflife.com/hot-sour-cabbage-stir-fry/
A little heat, a little sour, should cut through the sweetness of teriyaki and the richness of pork belly. Really quick and easy.

I was going to say that the only ingredient that you might have trouble finding is Chinese Black Vinegar, but then I saw your location is San Francisco, so I'm pretty sure you'll have no problems lol.
 
@betarhoalphadelta - Thanks for the suggestion. The wife ended up overruling my suggestion of that recipe, but she ended up making a raw slaw with cabbage that probably gave a lot of similar flavors.

Ended up being great. I cut the pork belly into bigger than normal sized chunks, and the mix of trader joes soy-yaki sauce, sriracha, some spices and other things I can't recall adding turned out to be a great flavor.

Neat that @Jayjay1976 we did a similar style pork belly!

Salt, meat church all purpose rub, ~250F for about 4.5 hours with cherry chunks. Pulled off, glazed with the above sauce and back on for about an hour.

Cooked on my Kamado Joe.

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Arrggh!!!

Yesterday was a long day of brewing, cleaning the house, smoking meat. 8.5# of bacon, a 3.5# pork shoulder, two racks of ribs. The ribs were the last off the smoker. I set them on the counter to cool for a bit. A 'bit' turned into falling asleep and waking up with the ribs still on the counter.

Arrggh!!!
 
Question for the pellet pooper fans...

Have you tried the Kirkland pellets? Just saw them today in my local Costco. Appears to be $12.99 for 40#, which is a pretty smokin' deal.

I know Traeger says it'll void the warranty if you use non-Traeger pellets, but my hand-me-down grill is so old that it's WAY out of warranty. So I'm not worried about that.
 
Question for the pellet pooper fans...

Have you tried the Kirkland pellets? Just saw them today in my local Costco. Appears to be $12.99 for 40#, which is a pretty smokin' deal.

I know Traeger says it'll void the warranty if you use non-Traeger pellets, but my hand-me-down grill is so old that it's WAY out of warranty. So I'm not worried about that.
I've not tried them myself but from what people are saying on the forums and reddit, Kirkland pellets are good quality and allegedly made by lumberjack.

On a side note, Traeger may try to fool you into believing that using other brand pellets voids your warranty, but that practice is illegal. My Weber tells me to fill the hopper with Weber pellets (which incidentally are also made by Lumberjack) but I've used all kinds of different brands without issues. Well except the one time I used Traeger pellets, had my first flameout and discovered hard lumps of burnt residue in the burn pot after running the bag. Won't be buying those ever again.
 
Smoked a 15# brisket on the Rectec Sunday. When the flat reach temp I separated it from the point. I cut up the point for burnt ends. So good! Forgot to take a pic of the burnt ends.
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Smoked a bird night before last with pecan. Was raining so I used the electric smoker. Note how I’m preheating the wood like splits on top of the cook chamber of a TX offset smoker😂😂😂😂😂
 

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